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What I drive past every day

Avalanche, Armada, Navigator. All Black. All sitting on twenties. There is even a Porsche in there somewhere. A black one, in a garage, on the right, with all the rest.

The Hummer on the corner, it too is black.

The houses on the left, all have white cars. A huge Chevy SUV, a Z71 pickup, and some other monster.

I don’t even know what it is. Might as well be a fucking motor home for the size.

All sitting on bling.

McCain-Palin stickers and signs abound. Not one for Obama. Not even one. Zero. Nada. Zilch. This is McCain Country. I drive though this every morning as I drop my kids off at our daycare provider’s house. Six driveways, three on the right and three on the left. Black on the right & white on the left. Anchored by two repo properties and a short sell at $520k.

How the hell do you sell short at a half a million dollars? You borrow more than a half a million dollars and default on the loan. And this state carried John McCain. Because they can’t.

The woman directly across the street from where I park twice a day Monday through Friday stood in her driveway and cried as the repo man took away her big black Hummer. Good new though, she got a new one, bright red again, to replace it.

And I can only assume that she is no longer crying.

The guy with the Navigator was having a garage sale this morning. He had all his lawn furniture, the dining room set and a bed room collection in his driveway. Even has a sign. Cash and carry. He didn’t look happy at 7:10 am.

I didn’t think to mention to him that it’s Friday. Most people have garage sales on the weekend. But, then again, must people buy houses they can afford.

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure.
Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

37 thoughts on “What I drive past every day”

I share your lack of respect for the fat-ass, borrowed-on-credit lifestyle that (at least until quite recently) was de rigeur in American culture. Morons. Living within your means isn’t a super-hard concept to grasp.

You know what worries me the most right now? Buck-fitty gas is back. The same droolers that said, “fuckin finance it!” are the same ones that will see buck-fitty gas as a green light to go sign for a loan on an F-250 4×4 that will never in its life have its bed dented from hauling debris or its paint scratched by whacking through brush on a bad Jeep track. The REAL morons are the ones who install after-market brush bars on their fucking taillights-yeah buddy, you reverse down the trail so fast you need to protect your taillight lenses. Moron.

How hot are the housewives? How desperate are the husbands? Maybe we can work something out to keep them in the hood? I’m sure there’s plenty of silicone to go around. Nothing quite as sweet as a conservative grudge-fuck. Hellbelly

On the upside I just picked up a sweet Kline from one of these dopes at a yard sale. I have watched it collect dust next to the BMW and Mercedes every time I ride by over the last couple years. Pennies on the dollar, still has the original tires and they are like new. The for sale sign in the yard was a tip off that the well was drying up. What a country! He should have ridden the bike and sold the Beemer,

On my ride today I went past a high school in the better part of OC. There was a mom driving an escilade with a “SARAH put a Believer back inthe white house!” sticher on it. I wonder if Sarah is working on the pipeline she invented now that she is back in AK. She is the energy spesialist. I forgot that to be a christian the first thing you doe each day is count the believers from the non believers and assume you wealth was gods will and you deserve it…..

I wonder if sarah palin knows that oil comes from the diansours she doesn’t believe in?

I might start going to the estate sales soon to see if I can find a Colnogo or Serotta collecting dust. fucking great idea

Yeah, and the financial assholes get a bailout. So many people tooting the capitalist horn when it puts cash in their pocket, now the piper is coming and they all want welfare. Bitches. I hear some of these asses will get readjusted mortgages with interest just under 3%. I pay my taxes, spend in my means (mostly, except bike parts and Drunkcyclist Bailouts), and get stuck honoring my commitments. These bastages only use the rules to get ahead, and when they start to lose go and change the rules. So much like my nieces when they were six. If parents would do their job and teach kids right from wrong in the first place, people these days wouldn’t feel so entitled. At least a town in Texas will get the idiot it lost 8 years ago back.

Any lawn jockey’s on the street?
Mountain House,.. near suburban stockton ca, isn’t far from here, I should check if for garage sales.
I checked on zillow..looks like 2 houses on each block are going.
But really I wanted to go because I’ve never seen an economic ground zero up so close.

I don’t see the left/right angle on this situation. The people that over extended, lied about income, bought shit they couldn’t afford and basically gambled and lost are not just from the right. I know it’s fun, and way too easy, to kick the Republicans around but there are plenty of Prius driving Obama-ites that are just as fucked up right now.

Don’t get me wrong…….fuck them all…period. I don’t want a dime of my tax money to bail out any person or business. I live in a house I can afford, drive an affordable vehicle and don’t buy near as many bikes as I want. I also save for my retirement, maintain medical insurance for my family and save for my daughter’s college education. I don’t think I’m the exception and I don’t think it has anything to do with my political views.

Finally, it is always fun to read something you wrote. Gnome is doing a good job…DC is not dead but I’m glad you still find the time to check in.

Last time I saw GWAR was back around 2004. They threw Bin Laden, Bush, and Kerry into meat grinders during Slaughterama… I got covered with blood and alien jiz. I think they dismembered Mike Tyson in that same show. Good times. It’s unbelievable how they can play during that madness.

It sounds like most of the folks on the street you are talking about are living above their means… and to those that chose to live that way and are now feeling the pinch – you got what you deserved. But let’s not dump everyone who is foreclosing on their home or filing for bankruptcy all into one pile. A lot of us live within our means, but you would have to be a fool to think that you are immune to financial crisis. Honest, hard working folks are getting laid off left and right. People who pay all of their health insurance premiums get injured or seriously ill and come to find out that they lack coverage to pay all the bills. Small business owners are finding that people without jobs don’t buy their goods anymore and are forced to close up shop. I’m definitely not defending anyone who tries to live the high life on a middle class salary, but I get the feeling that a lot of people think that only morons can get into a tight spot. Sometimes good guys get the shaft, too…

While it’s ok to express a certain amount of mirth in the direction of those McCain/Palin supporters who are apparently getting their just desserts, I feel it is necessary to point out that there are PLENTY of repo’d Chrysler 300s and Escalades sitting on 22’s in a suburb next to mine that is mostly populated by the demographic which voted 98% for Obama. It hits across the board…when you live beyond your means (and who doesn’t know SOMEBODY) with a MAJOR credit card problem…eventually you are going to get bitten. Problem is, this society doesn’t believe in consequences any more…there are no “losers,” there is no responsibility, there are no repercussions. And now we’re stuck in it. The Cook County Sherrif suspended evictions because in many cases, the actual homeowner defaulted and the people renting the place (and working hard and paying thier own way) got the shaft. And he was then sued.

Guess what kids? All those people that bought all that stuff without means to pay for it…they are all going to be bailed out by you and I…the ones who were resposible for our money and therefore have some for the gov’t to take away.

Dem or Rep, conservative or liberal…we are all in this mess together…and it’s gonna be UGLY for a while. Just don’t expect the government to be able to fix it…how do they say…ya can’t fix STUPID.

I feel your pain, man. I live in a small town in Alberta where a lot of the fuel for those monsters orginates. What I see on my daily bike commute are his and hers behemouths blinged out to take the kids to hockey practise or dance lessons. And not that it’s near/below freezing, those guzzlers are idling for hours in the driveway, at the grocery store, at the movies, and the list goes on.

The armchair politician in me says Obama should think seriously about helping out the big three auto makers in North America. Give them the money AND tell them what they can/cannot build (just like FDR did back in war time). Tell them to start building SMALL hybrid cars, scooters, bicycles and the such.

sfb – there is responsiblity in the abovementioned scenario. it is mine to inform you that you’re the real looser. and there is merit to bj’s original posting with the right / left angle. i guarantee the 3 fat cats in detroit who are pleading for a bailout are republicrats. all 3 profitted hugely from selling all those hummers, escalades, avalanches, etc to the shitbags bj described. nice try to be “political” but as always, your logic and rationale suck. sure, there may be a few prius driving people who charged and consumed too much with hubris. however, they surely pale in comparison to the number of dumbfuck, broke, foreclosed mccain/palin drones. also, comparing your cook county burbs to phoenix/kleenex and maricopa county is way off. i know the kind of phoenicians bj is describing. they’re about as bad as they come. mormons in slc and the valley aren’t too far behind however. and for you sfb – please keep your deperate (disparate) babble coming. in a sick way it brightens my day to know you still don’t have a fucking clue.

Here in Bibleburg The Baby Cheezwhiz is laying ’em off in droves. The local jobless rate is at a five-year high (6.6 percent, 20,735 people looking for work). Ditto the state jobless rate (5.7 percent, with 10,000 jobs going poof in October alone).

“For Sale” signs in front of houses give way to “Bank Owned” notices. The utilities people want to gobsmack us with a 19 percent rate increase. Downtown looks like the “Where is Everybody?” episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and the malls are worse.

And with gas at $1.60, what do you see on the roads? Fuck a bunch of bikes, Vespas and Priuses. I’m talking H3s, Yukons and Excursions, all of them still sporting Magoo-Barbie 2008 stickers.

My On-One single speed tows my kid, does the shopping and gets me to-from work. I use cycle paths, I’ve spent too many years dodging traffic, I figure the odds are piled high against me doing much more. I’ll stick to trails and cycle paths (mostly canal tow path here, with one sweet section where I parallel the motorway and can laugh at all the cars ‘parked’ on the motorway trying to get to work).

sfbime-
Why do you even bother posting? Your shrill whining is completely worthless…much like you. If the only thing making you happy is cutting on my opinions…you’ve got some SERIOUS problems dude. I would COMPLETELY disagree with your inference that things are different here in Cook (Crook) County…plenty of Avs and Burbs and Escalades and Benzes, Ferraris and Lambos around my hood…and plenty of McCain voters I’m sure.

Your dumbshit response failed to grasp my point that there are African-American Obama supporters rollin’ in these pigs as well. Keep your head up, though…I have faith that someday you’ll learn to form a coherent, cojent thought and jump off my ass. Have a nice day.

“…the demographic which voted 98% for Obama…” is this another way for your racist ass to say “…african americans…”. why speak of such a demographic with such spite and distance. just about as clear as mud. way to go, perpetuating the creation of the other.

by the way, clearly i don’t like you and your kind. you probably are too close minded to like me and mine. so here’s an objective question for you: how many years of higher education do you possess? honestly. i’m betting you’re no clinical Psychologist so to suggest i have “SERIOUS problems” strikes me as having nothing substantive to say. shallow. and by the way, i am a doctor so i can clinically diagnose you as a serious asshat.

You know, some of us live in rural outlying communities that are underserved by(or completely lacking in) mass transit. Some of us perform essential services on job sites that, due to the nature of our industry, are distant from our homes. Some of us have disabled family members, and even need the carrying capacity for a family AND a wheelchair. Some of us have kids (yes, mine carpools) who must commute to classes at our community college some 30 miles away and need safe, reliable transportation. Some of us are senior citizens with health issues.

So unitl your Lord and Saviour Barack Hussein Obama fixes all our problems and the clouds rain down Wild Turkey and IPA, maybe all of you could try not to be such whiney judgemental pricks.

And Dr. sfbime…
I’m a freakin’ cowboy astronaut millionaire… so fuck you and the high-horse you and “your kind” are riding on.

You have NOTHING to contribute to this site, save ripping on me…and you have NO CLUE who I am…so I DO feel the need to point this out as irrational behavior…even a layperson could see this. So how about this…do some actual THINKING sometime…come up with some original and constructive conversation (and your very OWN handle). And GOD HELP your patients, Mr Internet Doctor.

Whoa, the guy’s a doctor? Didn’t make it far enough through the general ashattery to notice. But who gives a fuck how much education you have? That’s no substitute for intelligence.

Having said that, maybe “whiney judgemental pricks” was abit over the top. But damn, it frosts me when some crunchy type that probably couldn’t hold a real job starts running off at the mouth about evil cars and shit. And if gas gets all the way down to thirty cents a gallon I’m fine with it. But President-elect “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need: ain’t gonna let that happen.

And one more thing: It’s spelled “cogent”, dude. Just thought you might want to know.

Pointing fingers at McLames and Lobamas isn’t going to do anything except create more division and more super-hard-headed arguments which get nothing accomplished because no one is willing to listen to anyone else.

When I first read these posts, I didn’t think of it as a partisan slight against conservatives. I thought of it as “most Hummers I see pull out of homes with McCain signs (because most people in my area are conservative, it’s an issue of proportion) but that observation is not all-inclusive nor has any study shown that only McCain supporters have lived outside their means.”

Looking at the people I know whose fiscal responsibility I question: some conservatives I know have lived WAY beyond their means and leveraged everything they just bought against everything they owned. Proportionally more liberals have lived a little bit outside their means but not to nearly the same extent the aforementioned conservatives had.

The US economy was going so well for so long that people just thought money was going to continue to pour in and we’d forever be running to the bank with bags of gold to pay off the new toys we just bought to fill our extra-large garage attached to our extra-large house.

I didn’t overspend and I’m happy with the position I’m in. Some of my friends went out and bought cars and homes on the promise of paychecks that hadn’t come in yet. I rent an apartment. It’s all about looking to the future and planning accordingly. Remember that shit from high school? “Those who do not learn from history…”

I don’t have a back yard, but I don’t have a million extra pounds of stress being lumped on me by my spending. I wouldn’t trade my situation.